The boxes were a separate room, isolated from the courtroom, for witnesses and accused who shouldn't be influenced by the proceedings in the main courtroom. That wouldn't stop Max from being able to hear the thoughts of the people in the next room, but the thought was there.

Listening to Nico's thoughts was much more entertaining, as she was taking the role of prosecutor as Second in Command of the Terminus Trading Company. She pulled no punches with her questioning, and their actions actually sounded worse coming from her deceptively innocent voice setting than when Max read them for himself.

All but the four Company Captains pled guilty and pleaded for leniency, asking to be dismissed and sent to Rae 5 for hard labour instead of given the death penalty as mutineers.

The four remaining defendants laid out their case to the best of their ability, with the advantage of General Tennant not being able to read their thoughts and realize that they had carefully scripted this performance at the behest of Lord Mori.

"We have here evidence that the Captain and Commander were consorting with enemies of the Reavers, disregarding their duties to protect the crew and the dignity of the Reavers as a whole in their search for wealth and fame." The spokesperson for the group was explaining.

General Tennant wasn't fully up to speed on the new deals that the Alliance and other species present had made with the Reavers until that moment when he reviewed the evidence that was supposed to be the defence of the Mutiny effort.

Most of it, predictably, relied on the presumption that Lord Mori was going to be the leader of the Reavers by the time they were discovered, and his intent was to exclude all other species from the Trade Agreement and keep human technology and advancements within the Trade Alliance, with himself set up as the supreme leader.

"I see only one major flaw with this argument. Lord Mori is ineligible to run for leadership, as she is only six years old right now." General Tennant informed them, and Max sensed that he was handing the documents back so they could reorganize their arguments.

"Please explain, Judge Tennant." The spokesperson asked in confusion.

"The previous Lord Mori was executed in an honour duel two hours ago after he was eliminated in the first round of nominations for leadership and challenged Lady Tarith for her position."

"That can't be possible." The Pilot gasped, and Max sensed the confusion and rage in his mind.

"I have the video, as I was also the referee for their duel." General Tennant informed him.

Calling that a duel was very generous. Max watched the video play in the minds of the attendees of the trial, and it was only about ten seconds long. Mary Tarith had chosen an unarmed duel as the mode of combat and shattered his fist with her first punch, going toe to toe with the man three times her size, and then promptly crushed his skull with a kick.

That wasn't really a shock to Max. That woman was just as scary as her daughter, but to the rest of the room, it was a bit of an incredible revelation. Mary Tarith had gotten an exemption from the off-planet draft to serve her decade of Military Service on Kepler Terminus, so everyone had assumed that she wasn't much of a fighter and didn't have a high-ranked system.

Clearly, that wasn't the case since she was stronger than her opponent, but for those who didn't know her personally, it was hard to reconcile with her very motherly appearance.

Nico was cheering and laughing as she watched her mother fight, adding cheers of "Grab the ear, grab the ear." to the recorded audience noise.

She had often been dragged across rooms by her ear after upsetting her mother and considered it her ultimate move, as it was one of the few that she didn't have a proper counter for.

"Would you like time to rebuild your defence? If you have it, you may present new evidence of your judgement that the Captain and Commander were acting against the Reavers." General Tennant informed them after the video of the duel had ended.

The four men spent a few moments considering their answer. Then the leader spoke up with his only option to avoid a guilty verdict.

historical

"I challenge for leadership of the Terminus Trading Company." He spoke proudly.

"As per Reaver tradition, there will be two tests of your worthiness, with the Second in Command choosing a challenge as a tiebreaker should you fail one of the two.

The first trial is your fitness to Command. As you have previously Commanded a minor vessel of a Reaver Company, your qualifications are sufficient. The second is a vote by the members of the Terminus Trading Company. I will send the notifications now." General Tennant informed the room.

They didn't have to wait long. Over half of the Company had responded within a minute, rejecting his bid to take over.

"Now, the Second in Command will put a test to you to determine if you are worthy of taking up the mantle." General Tennant informed the room.

Letting the Second in Command choose the challenge made it either very easy or impossible for the challenger, depending on the mood of the Second. It was one of many reasons the position was for the most trusted friend of the Commander, but more often, they would be the one leading this challenge after a Commander had made a grave mistake and lost the trust of their crew, and the option would be selected by the third.

"Since Terminus is tasked with the negotiations between the Reavers and dozens of alien species, I will give you a challenge that is within the realm of what the Reaver Council has asked of us. You will challenge a Huntress for the right to negotiate a lifelong partnership. If successful, you will have proven yourself."

Nico's words were loaded in a way that nobody else in the room, except the Alliance Envoys and the Huntress, realized. Lifelong Partnership, in the Hunter language, meant a Marriage. Anything else was an alliance, a working arrangement, or a Hunting Party. Nico was eagerly anticipating having the man propose marriage to some random Huntress and watching him go down in flames. It was definitely cruel and unusual punishment, but that wasn't a restriction in a Reaver Trial. Unfortunately, she underestimated his lack of understanding, and he acted before anyone could explain the situation to him.

The Pilot walked proudly up to Huntress Khan and spoke in a clear and demanding voice. "We can solve this right now, then. You have long held to a working arrangement with the Terminus Trading Company, and I see no reason that we can't move forward from this point. Huntress Khan, will you join me in a lifelong partnership to lead the Terminus Trading Company to new heights?"

Max laughed so hard that he fell out of his chair, and he could sense that Nico had deactivated her motor functions to avoid doing the same herself.

When he recovered his senses, Max could hear someone shouting for a Medic to come to the courtroom quickly and Nico laughing in a way that sent chills up the spines of every male present in the room.

Huntress Khan had slapped the pilot so hard it had broken his jaw and neck.

It was the first step of the Hunters' mating ritual and was more commonly on the backside when a Huntress was flirting with her chosen partner. If you couldn't even take a hit, you couldn't possibly be worthy of marriage, and he had failed miserably. Of course, if she had been interested, she wouldn't have hit him nearly that hard, but ignorance was no excuse, at least not in a court of law.

The Giant was laughing himself into a bout of hiccups, and it took a few minutes for him to recover before General Tennant could restart the proceedings and find out what had just happened. The Dryad and Valkia silently uploaded the video of the incident to social media under the heading of "Trolling the Ignorant" while the humans in the room were doing their best to understand what had insulted her so much that she hit him.

"I will take that as negotiations failed. Magnificently failed, in fact. The challenge has been determined to have failed. Leniency is granted to the defendants, and they will be turned over to the Reaver Council for a life sentence of hard labour in a location to be determined by the Council." General Tennant declared, bringing the trial to a close.